‘I never wanted to fight with you, Christie.’
Christie McCarthy took a big gulp of his drink to steady his nerves. ‘I know that, Michael. I know you had no choice. I can see that now.’
Michael was still smiling his big friendly smile, as he said nonchalantly, ‘By the way, Christie, just one last question. I will never mention this again, but it’s important that I know. Which treacherous ponce gave you the code to my fucking gates?’
Chapter Fifty-Four
Lana was on her third glass of wine. She was what she called ‘merry’ and, as Josephine topped her glass up, she laughed loudly. ‘Oh, thank you, darling! This is just what the doctor ordered!’
Josephine laughed with her. This was the mum she loved, the mum she had grown up with – full of fun and mischief, always up for a good laugh. She had missed this. She hated them being at loggerheads, especially when it was over her Michael.
Lana looked at her daughter with her usual critical eye. For all her traumas, her Josephine was still a lovely-looking girl – well, woman now. She had kept her natural beauty, even after all the miscarriages and the stillbirths. The only real change had been her daughter’s quietness; with every loss she had gradually lost her natural ebullience and her lust for life. Over the last few years she had become like a recluse – she rarely left the house now.
She still shopped twice a week, and that was it. But how she shopped! Talk about bulk buying! Everywhere you looked there were boxes, all piled up on top of one another. She used to keep them out of sight – now the whole place looked like a warehouse. Who the fuck bought twenty-four cans of soup at a time? There was only the two of them. As Des joked, if the bomb dropped, they could live round Josephine’s for a year, and never eat the same meal twice. She had laughed with him, pretending everything was all right, but it worried her, as a mother. She knew that things were not OK with her daughter; her girl wasn’t right in her mind.
This house had once been spectacular. Tastefully decorated, each item of furniture had been agonised over, carefully selected, and put into place with love and pride. Now, though, every room had boxes piled up everywhere. Josephine shopped like she was feeding the five thousand. A case of this, two cases of that. What really bothered Lana was that Josephine acted like it was perfectly normal. This was a very big house, yet her daughter was having to use every room to store her purchases. But Lana knew better than to say anything – she was not going to rock the boat in any way now that they were finally back on track. She kept her own counsel where Michael was concerned too. Josephine was not going to listen to anything detrimental about him, but Lana knew she must have heard the rumours going round. Look at all this about Kelvin McCarthy for a start – it was the talk of the town.
There was something she needed to pluck up the courage to ask her daughter though – something she couldn’t let go. It was far too important. She gulped down her wine for more Dutch courage. It was really lovely; one good thing about Michael Flynn for all his faults – and they were legion – was he only bought the best.
‘I’m a bit pissed, Josephine!’
Josephine laughed happily. ‘I could have told you that, Mum!’
Lana laughed with her daughter, pleased to see the girl so happy for once. ‘Josephine, my love, I have to ask you this, darling, as your mum – please don’t be cross with me. Are you pregnant again?’
Josephine looked at her mother, sorry to her soul that her mum had not asked her the question straight out but had needed a few drinks to pluck up the courage. She knew that this was her fault. She had deliberately built a barrier between her and her mum. A barrier that had alienated her from her own mother so much she was too scared to ask her a perfectly natural question. She was nearly eight months gone now. She knew she should have told her mother already. She was an only child, she was all her parents had. She felt so guilty, and so disloyal. Her mum loved her more than anything, and she knew that without a doubt.